


Commiseration In Poor Taste

by Quiet_Shadow



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Developing Friendships, Drinking & Talking, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Sex, Inappropriate Behavior, M/M, Off-screen Relationship(s), Past Relationship(s), Protectiveness, Sticky Sexual Interfacing (Transformers)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29759538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiet_Shadow/pseuds/Quiet_Shadow
Summary: Optimus Prime and Megatron have become a couple, and neither Ratchet nor Strika are happy about it. Sadly, it's not like the two idiots will ever listen to reason (or to them, which is basically the same thing if you were asking them), so what are two concerned friends to do?Put asides their differences and put their foot down to try and install a few basic rules about this whole 'dating' thing, for one.
Relationships: Lugnut/Strika (Transformers), Megatron/Optimus Prime, Optimus Prime & Ratchet, Past Megatron/Starscream, Ratchet & Strika (Transformers), Strika & Megatron
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	Commiseration In Poor Taste

**Author's Note:**

> A silly little story because I needed something fun. Enjoy <3

This late at night, the bar (or at least, what passed for a bar on this ship) was near empty, which suited Ratchet just fine. The grumpy old medic reached for a cube and downed half of it in a gulp.

“I disapprove entirely,” he let out, putting the cube back down with a loud noise.

On the other side of the table, the massive Strika’s optics flashed. “I disapprove even more.”

“Of all the murderous terror machines out there to shack off with…” the disgruntled medic continued.

“Of all the puny, worthless peons in the galaxy to pick…” Strika said on the same tone.

“… Are you trying to piss me off by imitating me?” the medic glared up at her, only for Strika to shrug.

“Not at all. You and I are simply thinking along the same lines,” Megatron’s most formidable General replied.

“Ah,” the medic harumphed. Well, he should have expected it. Not that he hadn’t been aware of General Strika’s own _feelings_ on the matter, but it was annoying to realize just how close in mindset the two of them were. “He’s not worthy of him. Your Megatron, I mean.”

“And your Optimus isn’t even fit to lick Lord Megatron’s pedes,” Strika countered. ‘Truthfully, the way the two of them keep making optics at each other is making me sick in the fuel tank.”

“Yeah? Me, it’s giving me processor aches,” Ratchet pointed out, looking at the remain of his cube. The taste was atrocious, but if he wanted to get wasted in short order, he’d better finish it and order a new one. A double, even. “He’s not the type of mech I wanted Prime to bring back home.”

“Because you think I wanted Lord Megatron to lose his mind and start wooing an _Autobot_?” Strika grunted, grabbing her own cube of fuel – special rocket one, if Ratchet trusted the color. Which he didn’t. Who knew what the ‘Cons _really_ put into that stuff? He may have been old as dust and he may have abused from strong drinks at one point in his life in the wake of the Great War, but his fuel tank was still in a fairly good state and he wanted to keep it that way. “If I could, I’d try and convince him to dump him already. But he’s a stubborn bastard,” she sighed wistfully before taking a sip.

“And Optimus is just as much as one, when he’s not being a self-sacrificing idiot,” Ratchet sighed as well. “And don’t get me started on his taste in romantic partners! I thought whatever fling he **obviously** had with Sentinel Prime vorns ago was bad, and don’t get me started on that mutant femme who almost killed us several times over, but to pick _Megatron_ now?”

“Ah!” Strika snorted. “Because you think Megatron is better? _Starscream_ didn’t get where he stood just by talent alone, you know, no matter what the slagging traitor wants to claim. The way Megatron made optics at him during war councils was sickening.” She leaned back in her seat after throwing her now empty cube behind her, where it shattered against a wall, much to Ratchet’s disapprobation. Typical Decepticon behavior, destroying without a care – and no wonder the bar looked like a dump. “Though I should have seen it coming. Megatron has always liked mechs with a mouth on them.”

Ratchet bristled. “What is that supposed to mean exactly?” he asked the large femme threateningly. If she dared to insult Optimus… She might had been thrice as tall as him, but Ratchet wouldn’t hesitate to make her face acquainted with his fist if she dared so much as sully Optimus’ good name.

Even if the Prime was doing a pretty good job at sullying it himself.

(And he carefully avoided thinking about _where_ Optimus may have put that mouth recently.)

The Decepticon snorted. “Oh, please. Surely you’re not blind to the fact your Prime has a way with _words_? The way he’s sprouting your disgusting Autobot propaganda with conviction, I’m not surprised he manages to sway mechs with a single speech. Megatron always had a weakness for orators,” she muttered wistfully.

“How do you explain Starscream, then?” Ratchet raised an optic ridge.

“Voice asides, Starscream has a way with words too,” Strika grunted and alright, Ratchet had to concede that to her. He wasn’t privy to Decepticon drama and politics, but everyone knew Starscream was a liar, and a good one, and good liars had a way with their tongues. “Thankfully, Megatron came to his senses quickly when it came to him. With that Autobot, though, I don’t think we’ll be that lucky.”

“Optimus isn’t the sort to dump a mech easily,” Ratchet agreed with a nod of regret. Why else would he have still tried to patch things up with Sentinel Prime or rekindle his friendship and curb Blackarachnia’s dark tendencies? Mech had the patience of an actual Primus Herald, the medic swore. “I doubt he’ll come back to his sense anytime soon either. And don’t let me start on trying to break things off for him and for his own good. He’d never forgive me.”

“Megatron wouldn’t either,” Strika commented. And something in her voice let Ratchet known that, while Strika would easily handle getting demoted, maimed or shoot out of a cannon, losing Megatron’s respect or friendship was more than she was willing to risk.

The medic and the General shared a look charged with long suffering.

“I suppose there are no ways around it, then,” the medic finally broke the silence.

“We must let them live their relationship through and cross our fingers it will burn and crash soon enough,” Strika nodded in acknowledgement. “Hopefully they’ll be out of their ‘interface like crazed petrorabbits’ stage soon.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Ratched mumbled, passing a hand over his optics. There were things a mech’s processors wasn’t build to handle, and stumbling on the Prime he was sort-of considering like an adopted Creation making out with the Slagmaker, terror of Cybertron, was one of them. He thought he was going to have a Spark-attack! “Is there anyone who hasn’t caught them yet?”

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” Strika laid out plainly. “I just want them to keep it somewhere I don’t have to see.”

“Good luck,” the medic replied. “Those two have absolutely no shame whatsoever. I caught them in the hallway just outside my Medbay.”

“I caught them in the washracks,” Strika said.

“I caught them on Megatron’s stupid looking throne!”

“I caught them in an evacuation shuttle while conducting an exercise!”

“I caught them in my medical supplies closet,” Ratchet insisted, hitting the table with his fist.

“I,” Strika replied coldly, “caught them _in my own berth_ , so busy fragging that they didn’t notice me nor Lugnut. I had the berth burnt and the remains spaced after they were done, and I _loved_ that berth!”

Ratchet opened his mouth, tried to say something… and closed it after a klik, sighing. “Alright, you win,” he reluctantly acknowledged. Allspark be good, if even their own private quarters weren’t safe anymore now…

“For once, I’m not actually happy for the victory,” the femme replied blandly. “That can’t continue. I won’t stand for it, medic.”

“Nor will I,” Ratchet approved. “But what do you suggest we do? Short of welding their interface panel shut – and trust me, I’m tempted.” He had been contemplating the idea already for a long time. Let’s say, about the first time he had seen Optimus’ gaze linger a little longer than normal on Megatron’s aft. “But I’d like to keep all my limbs attached to my body and, oh, it’s silly, I know, but I happen to enjoy living. I don’t want a pissed Warlord to wrench my head off my shoulders because I condemned him to abstinence!” he waved his arms in the air.

Strika chuckled darkly. “Since Scalpel and Knock Out said the same thing word-for-word, I won’t hold it against you. A pity, because I was tempted to do that too. But no. We will have to try and be more… subtle, I guess.”

Ratchet looked at her doubtfully. He knew what a Decepticon of her caliber usually considered as _subtle_ “… For some reason, I’m not sure putting either of them in a headlock and laying the law is going to work,” he said warily. Then again, with Optimus…

“Tss, without going that far, I think we have a few other options. We’ll do the headlock if they fail,” Strika grunted. “The thing is, medic, we care about those two idiots. Or at least, _I_ care about Lord Megatron and **you** care about that slip of a Prime. And they know it, don’t they? I don’t see why we can’t use it to guilt them into following a few rules.”

“Because Megatron can be guilted? That’s new,” Ratchet commented sarcastically.

“Guilted, bullied, whatever,” Strika waved it off with certainty, reminding Ratchet belatedly that Megatron’s General of Destruction had been with him since his very first rallies on Cybertron. She probably knew things about him the general public had never heard or known about. “If we lay the law, I’m sure we can find ways to enforce it, don’t you think?”

“… Maybe,” the medic allowed. He didn’t know about Megatron, but that was Strika’s problem, not his. Optimus he could manage – especially if he could wave a wrench in his face. Not that he _wanted_ to, but if it was what he took to have the kid listen to him… “Same set of rules for the both of them?”

“Obviously,” Strika nodded, sounding content with his easy agreement. “Rule number one, no interfacing the day, night or hours preceding a battle. I want Megatron having all his wits to him in critical situation.”

“Rule number **one** ,” Ratchet countered, “any and all interfacing is to happen behind closed doors, in quarters who are their owns preferably. The ‘no interfacing before a battle’ can be rule number two. Unless you want to burn another berth?” he raised an optic ridge.

“… Fine,” Strika groused unhappily, face twitching in interesting ways. “But that’s only because we can’t stop them from interfacing altogether. Rule number three, they clean after themselves once they’re done. I won’t subject the crew to walking into suspicious puddles every solar cycle.”

“Rule number four,” Ratchet added, putting his elbows on the table, “if any of them get an interface toy stuck somewhere uncomfortable, **I** won’t remove them. They get someone else and that final.” Especially if it was in _Megatron’s_ valve. There were things he refused to put his hands in, thank you very much.

“That’s fair,” Strika nodded, an hint of a smile on her face. “Rule number five, when in mission planning or battle debriefing, Lord Megatron and Optimus Prime must remain at a safe distance fixated by either of us.”

“Hoping to force them to keep their hands to themselves?” Ratchet smirked a bit, remembering too well what had happened in the last meeting. They had been lucky to flee the room before Megatron had pushed Optimus down on the table.

“Long enough for them to at least _pay attention_ to the report,” Strika corrected him. “I know anything further than that is probably too much to ask while they’re still in the lovey-dovey stage.”

“Yeah, probably,” Ratchet outright laughed this time, shaking his head ruefully. He raised a hand and signed to the barmech to bring him another cube. “Want another one for you? I’m paying.”

“Eh, why not?” the General smirked back, leaning in her seat. “You know, Autobot, I don’t like you,” she commented offhandedly.

“I’m not your biggest fan either, General,” Ratchet replied, raising an optic ridge.

“But,” she continued, stressing it out, “I think you and I can be worthwhile allies to keep our leaders out of trouble – or at least, out of _bigger_ trouble.”

“Leaders? Ah!” Ratchet snorted. “Call a Cybercat a Cybercat. At this point, they’re more our respective unruly, stupid, reckless, tasteless, interfacing-crazy pseudo-Creations than our Leaders.” A drone deposed two cubes on the table before rolling away very fast.

“… Yeah, you may be onto something,” the femme snorted back, reaching for her cube. “A toast to stupid pseudo-Creations, then?”

“To stupid pseudo-Creations,” Ratchet nodded, lifting his own drink.

They drank in silence for a moment before Strika opened her mouth again.

“Doctor… please, tell me they’re both up-to-date with their Anti-Sparking protocols.”

Ratchet choked, the fuel dribbling down his chin. “YOU REALLY HAD TO MENTION IT TO ME RIGHT NOW?!”

Allspark be merciful, he **knew** Optimus’ were up to date; he had installed them himself, after all. But what of _Megatron’s_? When had he last been checked over? What if their constant love-making ended up short-circuiting Optimus’ implant? What if the two of them handed up being one of those impossible miracle case where two partners ended conceiving despite both having fully functional Anti-Sparking protocols?!

Ratchet may have liked Optimus, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see a Mini-Prime rolling and toddling around and getting underfoot! He could barely keep the adult model alive and functioning as it was, so a small version? No, no way, he wasn’t signing up for it!

… Allspark, what if they ended up popping out a _Mini-Megatron_ instead?!

A Mini-Megatron with Optimus’ optics, and all their combined idiocy?

From the look on Strika’s face, the very thought disturbed him just as much as him, which was a small comfort.

That didn’t mean he was going to forgive her anytime soon for putting the very thought in his head, and Ratchet wasted no time letting her know what he thought of the nightmares the Decepticon had just given him!

His enraged shouts were heard outside of the bar, and made a few wary mechs step away very fast. Something told them they didn’t want to get involved in… well, whatever was going on. Best for their mental health, probably.

Then again, given Lord Megatron and his Autobot were making out two corridors away, perhaps the bar _was_ the safest option on this ship, after all…

****

End


End file.
